Body Image: Influence of the Society and Media
Abstract
This paper describes the effects of media and society to the way people see their body image, particularly to adolescents. The research method used is meta-analysis, where the synthesis of results from three different studies was used to determine the average impact of the similarity in results across the studies. The results obtained that the media and society has a huge influence on the adolescent’s (age group 12-19 years old) body image. The influence is highly to be more negative than positive, which often results to body dissatisfaction, leading to eating disorders, and worse, depression.
Keywords: body image, eating disorders, social perception, media influence
Body Image:
Influence of the Society and Media
Beauty is said to be in the eye of the beholder, but in this generation of modern technology and electronic media, beauty is all about 18-inch waist, bare collarbones, thigh gaps, flat stomach, big posterior and breasts, six-pack abs, toned muscles, and all the other impossible body standards set by the society and media. Body image has evolved throughout the years. From the renaissance’s full-figured bodies, Victorian era’s 12-inch waist, 1920’s boyish look, Hollywood’s Golden age’s muscle tone builds, mid-century conservative’s hourglass figure, to the new millennium’s impossible thin body shape - these are all controlled and directed by the media and society.
Ads and magazine covers sends message to teen girls that losing weight and looking like a plastic Barbie doll is what the society adores and considers beautiful. Movies that heighten pretty girls having the greater chance of happy ending implant the need to be socially accepted in order to be happy to every girl’s mind.
However, body image is not only limited to young girls or teenagers, to female or males, but to all people, regardless of their sexual orientation. Everyone in their life has his own body image.
Literature Reviewed
The Tiggemann et al. (2005) study compared cross-cultural body dissatisfaction, eating disorders, fashion magazines, and clothes between Australian and Italian young women.The researchers predicted Italian women to rate clothes as more important than that of Australian women. Fashion magazine consumption is predicted to induce inconfidence in body image and abnormal eating habits for Australian female. The same conditions do not apply to Italian women.
Teaching and Student Learning Outcome
This research concluded that similar variables may be applicable in both Australian and Italian participants; although, these variables are different in terms of purpose and applicability.
Methods of the Study
The study investigated eating disorder and body dissatisfaction between Australia and Italy – countries that exhibit different cultural backgrounds. However, they are similar in portraying skinny media ideals for women. The study assessed the internalization of thin ideals through developing questionnaires which were fulfilled by more or less a hundred of Australian and Italian women. Italian women were found to weigh lesser than the Australian women. It was also found that Australian women were more likely to have eating disorder, considers clothes as more important, and has higher body dissatisfaction rate through fashion magazine consumption than the Italian women.
Hypothesis of the Second Study
In 2012, Dakanalis et al. concluded in their study regarding the objectifying media and sexual orientation differences on eating disorder behaviours among Italian men that gay men have greater risk for depression, eating, and body-related disorders than the straight men.
Teaching and Student Learning Outcome
In order to explain the differences in sexual orientation regarding eating disorders among college levels Italian men, the study tested the Objectification theory as a suitable framework. The conclusion of the study matched its hypothesiswherein Dakanalis (2012) predicted that gay men would have higher rates in all variables of interest compared to straight men.
Methods of the Study
One hundred twenty five gay Italian and one hundred thirty heterosexual Italian men, aged 19–25 years, took part in the study. Participants wererecruited via advertisements posted at three large universities in Northern Italy asking for Italian heterosexual and homosexual volunteers for an online survey on sexual orientation, eating behaviours and mood.This method of data collection is appropriate for persons who are less “out” about their sexual orientation and it also has been demonstrated that the presentation format of self-report questionnaires (i.e., online versus paper-and-pencil) does not change the quality of results.
Hypothesis of the Third Study
The study of Wang (2010) about the influence of media in the way people, especially women, view their bodies found that female college students’ attitude towards what could be visually appealing or enticing is derived reading fashion, sports, and lifestyle magazines while male college students established concept of body image from reading sports and health magazines (Wang, 2010).
Teaching and Student Learning Outcome
Although it was previously specculated that media sends positive effects on the person’s perceptions of body image, Wang (2010) finds that these may not be the case in depth. The real case is a significant obsession to physical activities promoting healthy or desirable body figures which can be traced back to the portrayals of body images by media.
Methods of the Study
The study conducted a survey on the internet in Spring 2006. The final sample was composed of “348 female and 161 male students” (Wang, 2010) from a large Southeastern University of different race and ethnicity. The researcher used questionnaires using scales according to the order they are presented in different sections.
Hypothesis of the fourth article
Slater et al. (2012) hypothesized that the images that people see on various media platforms affect poeple’s concept for body image. They believe that by providing policies that would inform people about the manipulated or digitally-enhanced nature of images displayed on various media platforms will increase their sense of reality in terms of how they view their bodies.
Teaching and Student Learning Outcome
It allows for the establishment of a framework that sets digital images as manipulated or enhanced, which is useful for people to distinguish between what is real and what is not real. It also allows individuals to become more consciously attached to their senses and the manner in which these sense respond to body images.
Methods of the Study
The study used 102 undergraduate women with ages 18 to 35. They were picked in random and were tasked to read fashion magazines with no forms of precautions or warnings.
Hypothesis of the Fifth Study
Braun et al. (2013) believe that individuals’ perceptions of body images are influenced by socio-cultural factors that affect every person’s daily activities and consciousness. The propose that sexuality education enhances an individual’s correct perception of self and body.
Teaching and Student Learning Outcome
It helps people understand that social norms are very strong factors that distort notion of an individual’s body. Thus, our concept of what is ideal body image is a choice behaviour and therefore can be rectified.
Methods of the Study
There were 67 participants in the study, where in 50 were female and the mean age is 29 (Braun et al., 2013). The study had a 100% response rate. The study focused on five key elements through thematic analysis which focused on the attractiveness of body hair: “choice, privacy, attractiveness, sexual impacts and cleanliness” (Braun et al., 2013).
Similarities
First Similarity
The Tiggemann et al. (2005) and Wang (2010) studies both concluded that a media platform such as magazines can have a great impact on a person’s body image. Although neither of the female nor male’s attitudes was influenced by watching famous television shows (Wang, 2010).
Second Similarity
The studies of Tiggemann and Dakanalis both showed negative effects of the media towards a person’s body image. Tiggemann (2005) study showed Australian women to be likely facing higher rate of body dissatisfaction than the Italian women, and Dakanalis (2012) study showed gay men to be suffering the same as these heterosexual women.
Differences
First Differences
Tiggemann et al. (2005) study showed that similar thin media ideals between cross-cultural differences countries do not mean the same rate of body image dissatisfaction or eating disorders. Furthermore, the cross-cultural differentiation between variables may be able to contribute to the current notion of the foundation or origin of ramified body perceptions that affected many cultural landscapes.
Second Differences
Contrary to Dakanalis et al. (2012) and Tiggemann et al.’s (2005) results implying adverse influence of media to the body image such as body dissatisfaction and disordered eating, Wang’s (2010) study shows possible positive effects revealing that media’s portrayal of body images is directly linked to desirable or ideal body image and self-confidence but not directly linked to the motivation to engage in physical activities.
Discussion
Body image is how one perceives his body and appearance. It may include a person’s beliefs, thoughts, and feelings regarding his physique. Most often than not, the way a person see himself is tainted by society’s mandate of how he should be. In that case,“women’s and men’s bodies (and sexuality) can be understood as socially situated and socially produced. This means they are affected by, and developed in relation to, patterned sociocultural meanings and representations” (Braun et al., 2013).
People suffering from eating disorders or yo-yo dieting usually have a negative or distorted view of their bodies and appearance. They are dissatisfied with themselves. For instance, someone with anorexia nervosa sees himself or herself as “fat” when in fact, she is underweight. Thus, he or she results to losing more weight or worse - starving, in order to look thinner than he or she already is. People with bulimia, who are of normal weight, often see themselves as overweight, thus they think that they need to lose more weight. Body-shaming can be one of the causes for someone with bulimia to skip meals and have an abnormal eating habit. People suffering from these eating disorders often find their self-worth or self-value on their body shape and weight that is why they want to “fit in” to what society has created and labelled as “acceptable.”
Fashion models that usually have abnormal BMIs are often looked up to by young women and men. 20-inch waistline, thigh gaps, and visible collarbones are the way to go for a woman to be beautiful. With the young people accessing the internet, they are able to expose themselves to the opinion of people around the world of what’s considered beautiful and what’s not. Fashion models portrayed in magazine photos by the media influence a lot of these young people. In line to that, policy makers from Western countries organized an idea to create warning labels on media images to inform viewers that the photos or images have been edited or altered digitally, in order to get rid of the negative psychological effects of such enhanced media images (Slater et al., 2012).
Women are faced with impossible beauty and body standards implied by the society. Men with shorter or average height are made to think that ladies would always prefer tall guys with muscled builds.These ideals are transmitted through many socioculturalchannels, but most notably by the mass media (Tiggemann et al., 2005). The media could influence through the television, radio, newspaper, and magazines.
The study of Tiggemann (2005) showed that the Australian and Italian cultural contexts can play different roles in the same variables. Though different in culture, the two shared the same media ideals in women: skinny. But the study showed that Australian women have higher body dissatisfaction and eating disorder rate than that of the Italian women, although women, through the BMI gathered, weighed lesser than the Aussie women (Tiggemann et al., 2005).
The study showed that women in Australia are more like to be influenced by reading fashion magazine materials, which is closely related to Wang’s (2010) study which shows that female college students’ attitude towards a likeable body image were influenced mainly by reading magazines related to fashion, health and sports; although, males were more geared towards sports and health only (Wang, 2010). College females are also more likely to be concerned about losing weight, while college males are concerned about gaining muscles and may consider the use of steroids (Wang, 2010).
Gay men also have a body image of themselves, which is more similar to the heterosexual females. They are more likely to have eating disorders and body dissatisfaction than that of their straight counterparts. The society’s focus on physical appearance by the sexualized depictions of male bodies by the media has negative effects particularly for gay men (Dakanalis, 2012).
Media creates standards for body image; society implements and sets these guidelines for every individual to desire or follow.
Conclusion and Suggestions for Further Studies
In conclusion, body image is majorly influenced by the society and media. The self falsely mirrors the standards created by the society. When a person looks at himself, he sees himself but is dissatisfied; what he wants to see is someone that society would want. That standard is molded by the media; models with impossible body figures, movies with unrealistic characters and endings, fashion magazines that defies normal clothing, etc. These standards can have negative effects to those persons with negative body image. These negative effects can be anxiety, depression, poor self-esteem, eating disorder patterns, and body shaming. It would be best to study further these negative effects and find ways to counter it, and if not stopped, then be prevented. It would also be different and interesting to research on the possible positive effects these influences of media and society has to the people.
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Dakanalis, et al. (2012).Disordered eating behaviors among Italian men: objectifying media
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Wang, Xiao (2010). More than just anorexia and steroid abuse: effects of media exposure on
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